How to Use Concordances for Word Studies

BC502 Hermeneutics Fall 2009

Huntington University Graduate Ministry Program

Prepared by Scott Stocking

Using an English Concordance

• An English concordance allows you to look up an English word that occurs in a particular version of the Bible and find all its occurrences in that version.

• Most popular are Strong’s (KJV) and NIV Exhaustive Concordance (NIVEC). Many computer and Internet Bible programs use the “search” feature to function as a concordance.

• The following slide is a section taken from the “obey” entry in the NIV Exhaustive Concordance. We will follow the word “obey” and the Greek word from which it is translated in Hebrew 13:17–18.

A portion of the “obey” entry from the NIVEC

•The boldface “o” indicates that this is where the word “obey” appears in the text. The first letter of the headword is always used in this way in the main concordance. Other words that are translated from the Greek word appear in boldface (e.g., James 3:3). Helper words (e.g., “do”) or words implied by the grammar (e.g., “for”) are in italics (1 Peter 4:17).

Other features of NIVEC • Each entry line is called a “context line.” • The number at the end of the line is a cross reference to

the dictionary at the back of the concordance (see later slide). NIG (“not in Greek”) means that the word in the English text is not represented by a word in the Greek text. In the case of Hebrews 13:17, this is done because the English translators broke up one Greek sentence into two English sentences. NIH means “not in Hebrew”.

• An italic number indicates a Greek word for New Testament passages. A roman (not italic) number indicates a Hebrew word for an Old Testament passage. For “obey” in Hebrews 13:17, the number is 4275.

• Two or more numbers connected with a “+” sign indicate that those words together translate the boldfaced words in the context line.

Other features of the NIVEC

• The head word for each entry indicates the number of occurrences of the English word in the entire Bible version and any related English words.

• “Obey” occurs 165 times in the Bible, and its related forms with separate listings are “obedience, obedient, obeyed, obeying, obeys.”

• Note that when you look up a related form, it references back to “obey” as the main word in that family of words.

Looking up the Greek Word

• In the NIVEC, if you turn to the “Greek-English Dictionary” in the back section and look for 4275, you will find this:

Explaining the Dictionary Entry

• The dictionary entry begins with the number followed by the word spelled out in Greek (or Hebrew) characters and an English transliteration [Greek/Hebrew-symbol-for-English-letter(s) equivalent].

• When referencing a Greek or Hebrew word in a research paper, use the transliteration at a minimum, including the special characters (ē, ō). Do not use the number to reference the word!

• The entry continues with a part of speech and the total number of occurrences of the Greek or Hebrew word in the Bible. Because a Greek or Hebrew word will not always be translated into the same English word every time it occurs, this count will usually not agree with the English word count.

Explaining the Dictionary Entry

• An arrow (→) indicates that the Greek or Hebrew word is a root or base word (usually a verb, unless no verb form occurs in the Bible). The numbers that follow refer to the words derived from that root or base. Analyzing the word family can be an important aspect of word study, especially when studying an infrequently used word.

• A root symbol (√) indicates that the word’s root is located at that number. More than one number after a root symbol indicates that the word is a compound.

Explaining the Dictionary Entry

Explaining the Dictionary Entry

• After the root or related words, a general dictionary definition is given.

• After the dictionary definition, the different translations of the Greek or Hebrew word in the NIV are listed in order of frequency, with the frequency count for each translation in parentheses.

• As with the main entry, a “+#” indicates more than one Greek or Hebrew word was used to translate the English word or phrase.

Why is this important? • One of the most important reasons to utilize a

concordance is to perform a “word study” on key words in your target text.

• A concordance helps you see the “range of meaning” of a particular Greek or Hebrew word, that is, what is the broad usage of the word throughout a testament.

• A word study helps you decide which one of those meanings was the author’s intended meaning in your target passage. A biblical author rarely uses a word to imply more than one meaning, and he certainly doesn’t intend to suggest that the reader can choose from the different meanings, as the Amplified Bible suggests.

Expediting the Process • As you might imagine, it could get rather

involved looking up each English word in the translation list in the NIVEC and trying to find the specific verses that have that word number.

• A much easier way would be to use a Greek-English or Hebrew-English concordance with English context lines. Sample entries from the Greek-English Concordance (based on the NIV) for peithō (4275) follow.

The Whole Entry

The Greek-English Concordance

• Note that the first part of the GEC entry is almost identical to the NIVEC dictionary entry, minus the part of speech and the general dictionary definition. The general dictionary definition is found in the back of the GEC with other information.

The Greek-English Concordance • Words are listed in order by number, so you don’t have

to know the Greek or Hebrew alphabets to quickly find a word.

• Notice in the whole entry that all the verses where the Greek word occurs are listed, with the English translation of the word in bold, and helper words in italics. This saves you the step of having to look up all the English words separately in an English-only concordance.

• The word/phrase translated from the Greek word is in boldface; helper words are in italics.

• As with the NIVEC, [+#] indicates one or more words were used together to make the one translation.

The Greek-English Concordance

• The dictionary in the Greek-English Concordance offers a general dictionary definition for each word, followed by cross-references to other Greek dictionaries or lexicons.

• Read the user’s guide at the front of the GEC to understand what the different abbreviations mean.

The Greek-English Concordance

• Note the placement of the accent mark on the two words. Make sure you get the correct number! The first entry says “variant,” so that is probably not used in the regular body of the Greek text.

• S = Strong’s concordance number

• BAGD = A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (2nd edition, green binding; 3rd edition has been published with a maroon binding). The page number and page quadrant (A, B, C, D, top to bottom, left to right) are given.

• CB = Colin Brown’s The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology index volume, (usually volume 4) page number and column number; index entry tells all the places a discussion of that word can be found. An abridged version of this work is available already keyed to the NIV numbering system.

The Greek English Concordance • If you want a summary of all

the Greek words that translate to a specific English word, you can get that information from the Index in the back of the GEC. This essentially “sorts” the NIVEC main entry by frequency of Greek word.

• RPE means the word did not occur in Greek, but the English word was needed for clarity.

Blueletterbible.org • The Web site www.blueletterbible.org has an

excellent setup to explore the Greek and Hebrew behind the English text.

• When you go to the Web site, type in any verse. You will see a series of boxes next to each verse. Click the “C” box, and the Greek or Hebrew text will open, with all forms parsed and with all words (in the Strong’s numbering system; different from the NIV numbers) hyperlinked.

• When you click the Strong’s number, you will get a Greek-English Concordance-style listing.

Blueletterbible.org

Blueletterbible.org • Note that when you click a word number, you get

Strong’s outlined definition of the word, a lexicon (Thayer’s) entry, and a list of all complete verses in which the word occurs.

• Note that the count in a KJV bible might be different than in a NIV translation because each uses a different underlying Greek texts.

• Note the “continue” option allows you to access all of the verses in blocks of 20 or so. On the screen shot on the left in the previous slide, note the access to different study materials based on this passage.

• This Web site has much to offer. Explore!